'A festival people celebrate with their heart': How chefs are cooking for Diwali 2026
Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, falls on Sunday, November 8 this year, and for Indian kitchens across the UK it is one of the busiest and most personal weeks of the year.
For chefs who grew up with it, the festival is about family, light, colour and food shared around a crowded table, and translating that into a restaurant menu is a balancing act between nostalgia and the cooking they are known for.
Two chefs taking very different routes to the same celebration are Achal Aggarwal, head chef at Lomri inside Foxhills Club & Resort in Surrey, and Amit Bagyal, executive chef at Trèsind Mayfair.
Lomri: an Anglo-Indian restaurant in a Surrey manor house
Lomri opened in April 2026 in Foxhills' historic Manor House, taking its name from the Hindi word for fox. Achal, who has more than 20 years' international experience, including training in Tokyo and New York and senior roles with The Leela, Hyatt and Oberoi, combines Indian ingredients with Japanese techniques and contemporary European influences.
The restaurant was conceived as something a little different from the high street.
He told The Staff Canteen: "The company wanted to do an Anglo-Indian restaurant, and that's why we came up with Lomri, which is now becoming quite popular and people are very happy about it.
"The food we do is quite different from any other Indian restaurant you'd go and dine at. If you look at our menu, it's very regional. I've chosen dishes that lean more towards the royal cuisine, the lost recipes that most people probably don't want to do any more, because they take too much time to make and you need specific ingredients that are very difficult to get these days.
"My inspiration for the menu actually came from when I was working back in India, with three of the finest hotels, where the Indian food was taken from all the royal cuisines."
Growing up with Diwali
Diwali was the centrepiece of the year for Achal's family growing up.
Achal said: "It's celebrated across India, one of the most important festivals. Everybody gets involved, you go to friends' houses and give gifts. My family is quite large. We'd all get together, 50 to 60 of us in one place, and everybody would bring food from their own house and share it round.
"It's a festival people celebrate with their heart."
That sense of a shared table runs through the Diwali menu at Lomri, which is available from Monday, November 2 to Sunday, November 8.
He said: "Diwali is a festival where everybody gets involved, the whole family, and they celebrate by lighting candles and diyas at home and making everything look very bright.
"That's the inspiration for the menu. All the dishes have bold flavours and bright colours, and most of them are on a sharing basis, because the festival is about colour and sharing meals together.
"I've also taken dishes from all over India, from the north right down to the south, because the festival is celebrated across the whole country."
Inside the Lomri Diwali menu
The three-course menu is built for groups to share, with vegetarian and non-vegetarian choices at every stage.
Achal said: "On the starters, we've got three different options: a street food chaat, which is very popular in India and goes really well with any festival; one based on chicken; and one based on prawn, for people who love non-veg. The portion size is a little bigger, so if you're a family of two or four, you can choose one veg and one non-veg starter to share.
"For the main course, I've selected dishes from the north state of India down to the south state. We've got two non-veg items and one vegetarian item, again so people can choose what they want to eat, or share all three between themselves if they'd like."
Mains come with rice, garlic naan and dal makhani for the table, before a dessert course drawn from India's street stalls.
He said: "I want to showcase street food desserts from India, like you'd get at home or in the street there, so people don't miss out on India if they're not there at that time.
"I want them to make their own memories when they dine with us."
The Diwali menu is the first in a new series of cultural menus planned for Lomri, alongside a seasonal menu change.
Achal said: "So far I think we've hit the nail, because of the comments and feedback we're getting. Guests are extremely happy when they see this is a different kind of Indian food, the true Indian food. A lot of them think, this isn't what I've been eating so far, I haven't experienced anything like this before.
"Going forward, we'll keep the same rhythm and change the menu with every season."
- RECIPE: Chefs looking for a Diwali centrepiece can find Achal's chicken musallam (stuffed poussin), a royal dish from Lucknow, on The Staff Canteen, and in our November seasonal update.
Trèsind Mayfair marks its first Diwali in London
In Mayfair, Trèsind is celebrating its first Diwali since opening on Hanover Street in summer 2026.
The restaurant comes from Passion F&B, the Dubai-based group behind Trèsind Studio, which in 2025 became the first Indian restaurant in the world to win three Michelin stars under group executive chef Himanshu Saini. The London restaurant was among the 22 additions to the Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland in October, listed under Indian cuisine.
Executive chef Amit draws on his travels across India and his experience in some of London's leading Indian kitchens, and his Diwali tasting menu runs from Tuesday, November 3 to Saturday, November 7 for lunch and dinner, priced at £115 per person.
He said: "Created especially for Diwali, the tasting menu draws inspiration from familiar festive flavours and nostalgic favourites, reimagined with a contemporary Trèsind sensibility.
"Festive favourites including jalebi chaat and ghewar bring a playful interpretation of the flavours and nostalgia associated with Indian mithai, balancing tradition with modern technique and presentation."
From jalebi chaat to ghewar
The menu opens with arugula pani puri filled with preserved pear and feta cream, followed by a beetroot chop with potato, mustard and papaya chutney, and Trèsind's signature mushroom chai, which pairs king oyster mushroom with a crisp za'atar cannolo.
New for Diwali is a jalebi chaat, which brings the festive sweet together with avocado, strawberry and pomelo and a yoghurt ice cream. A tandoori tiger prawn with buttered asparagus and hollandaise espuma leads into the mains, where guests choose two from butter chicken with butter naan, goan lamb vindaloo with rosemary paratha, or sea bass in a coconut kiri hodi with malabar paratha, all served with black dal and Indian bread.
Dessert is ghewar with rose and cardamom ice cream, caramelised milk and shards of soan papdi. A vegetarian version swaps the prawn for paneer tikka paturi, with mains including tandoori morels with yellow chilli lababdaar and a mixed vegetable kofta.
For Amit, the menu is about turning childhood memories into something that sits comfortably in Mayfair.
Amit said: "In the kitchen, Diwali is pure nostalgia. At Trèsind Mayfair, we're translating those festive memories into modern culinary craft: vibrant Indian flavours and precise techniques that feel rooted in heritage, yet at home in contemporary Mayfair."
The menu is paired with a Diwali drinks list, including a banana, saffron and green cardamom drink available with or without alcohol, two Indian wines from Fratelli Vineyards in Maharashtra and a whisky digestif trolley. Tryst, the group's cocktail bar, is running its own Diwali cocktail menu, with drinks built around flavours such as thandai and sandalwood.
A Diwali supper club in Maida Vale
Elsewhere in London, chef and author Sabrina Gidda is cooking a one-off Diwali supper club at The Hero, the neighbourhood pub in Maida Vale, on Sunday, November 8.
Sabrina, who represented the Central region on Great British Menu in 2018, 2019 and 2021, has created a five-course menu to celebrate the festival of lights.
It starts with green chilli cheese pav and black chickpea hummus with crispy curry leaf and pomegranate, followed by hariyali bream with coconut masala bisque and barbecue guinea fowl with fenugreek butter sauce and confit leg biryani. Dessert is a cardamom and saffron tres leches with pistachio.
The dinner runs from 6pm to 10pm, with tables bookable through The Hero.
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